A Wicked Pursuit by Isabella Bradford Page A

state. It wouldn’t matter to Augusta, and he wouldn’t care even if it did. She was his lucky angel, her touch like soothing magic, and if he ever needed luck, good luck, it was now. “Miss Augusta.”
    Again there was that ominous exchange of glances among Sir Randolph, his assistant, and Mrs. Patton. Did they think he was blind as well as ill?
    “My lord,” Sir Randolph began again. “I do not believe it is appropriate for—”
    “Now,” Harry ordered, mustering what little strength he still possessed to sound like his customary, forceful self.
    Sir Randolph hesitated, his lips pressed tightly together to show his disapproval. Then he nodded.
    “Very well, my lord,” he said, gesturing to a footman near the door. “I shall respectfully request that Miss Augusta join us, although I cannot guarantee that she will come.”
    Harry sank back against the pillows and closed his eyes. She’d come to him. He didn’t doubt that for an instant. If it had been up to her alone, he felt certain she would have been here all along. All those nightmares where she’d left him—they were because Peterson and the others had kept her away.
    He must have drifted off again, because he awoke to the sound of her voice, and then she was sitting in the chair beside his bed, exactly where she belonged.
    “Good day, my lord,” she said, leaning close with a rustling shush of silk. “How are you?”
    She had newly returned from somewhere, and it gratified him to realize she’d come directly to him. She wore a silk gown splashed with flowers beneath a gauzy white perline, and a wide-brimmed straw hat with silk flowers. It was all pretty and fresh and somehow rather innocent, and while she didn’t dress with the same provocative French flair that her sister did, he would never have mistaken her for a servant if she’d dressed like this in the first place.
    He ignored her question regarding his health, which he thought was patently obvious. Instead he asked one of his own, and one he wished the answer to. “Where have you been?”
    She hesitated just long enough for him to know for certain that she hadn’t stayed away from choice, but had been excluded.
    “I’ve been to church, my lord,” she said, pulling off her kidskin gloves. “We all have. It’s Sunday.”
    She smelled of new-cut grass and sunshine and green meadows, and at once he’d a pleasing image of her walking purposefully across a field in her flowered gown, her Book of Common Prayer clasped in her hand.
    “Did you pray for me, Miss Augusta?” he asked, unable to keep from teasing her, no matter how ill he might be. “For my wicked old soul?”
    “You were included in the minister’s list of those who were ill or infirm and in need of the congregation’s prayers, yes,” she said, deftly avoiding any reference to his wickedness. She lay her palm across his forehead, her hand refreshingly cool. “Oh, my, you are very warm.”
    “It is as I said, Miss Augusta,” Sir Randolph intoned. “The fever has taken his lordship firmly into its grip, and we are taking the most aggressive course to combat it.”
    “You’ve carved his lordship’s arms to bits with bleeding, I see,” she said, more tartly than Harry would have expected. “It’s a wonder he has any blood left in him to be feverish.”
    “Miss Augusta,” Sir Randolph said sternly. “I assure you that I am treating his lordship according to the latest and most considered beliefs of the learned medical profession.”
    “I’ve no doubt that you are, Sir Randolph,” she said, smiling sweetly as she turned back to Harry.
    “Are you thirsty, my lord?” she asked softly. “Your lips are so dry.”
    Automatically Harry licked his lips, which were in fact parched and cracked, most likely from the fever, and tried to swallow. “I am wickedly thirsty, yes.”
    “If you are thirsty, then you must drink,” she said firmly, rising to go for the water herself.
    “I must object, Miss Augusta,” Sir